


If You Come Back, Bring a New Name for Everything

by spuffyduds



Category: The Craft (1996)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:26:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened was never going to be over. But the bond between them wasn't going to be, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Come Back, Bring a New Name for Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bethfury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethfury/gifts).



It’s not forgiveness, and it never will be.

(She thinks sometimes that, weirdly enough, she could almost forgive their trying to kill her. After all, she’d once tried to do the same. But tricking her into thinking her father and stepmother were dead...no. No forgiveness.)

So, not that. But there’s something...some connection, something stretching out forever from that moment in the grove when they first cast the corners together. Something for life. Almost like they all _married_ , somehow. Bound together forever, no matter how hard they might have tried to break free.

On some level, always, she’s expecting to see one of them. To look across the counter of the magic shop and lock eyes with Rochelle, to find herself sharing a sidewalk with Bonnie.

Given what she last heard of Nancy, she’s the only one Sarah isn’t really expecting to see. So of course she’s the one who turns up. And not randomly, not a face in a crowd; Sarah opens the door to a knock, thinking her dad’s going to be there with another care package of groceries. She's been living on her own for a couple of years now, but her dad still seems to think she'd get scurvy if he didn't show up with citrus fruit on a regular basis. He is possibly right.

But she opens the door, and instead of her dad grinning sheepishly at her over a bag of grapefruit, there’s Nancy. Same gothy clothes, same wide grin.

“Hi,” she says.

“Uh. Hi,” Sarah says, because what else is there to say.

“You gonna invite me in?”

“Do I need to? Are you a vampire now?”

Nancy cracks up, and Sarah can’t help it, could never help joining her when she laughs. And then Nancy just walks in, and Sarah’s heartbeat spikes for a second, but no, Nancy can’t harm her. Nancy can’t harm anybody, and how’d she get out, anyway?

Nancy cocks her head and says, “I guess after a while your binding spell, like, _cured me_. Because I was doing more harm by being crazy than by being well. My mom was a _mess_ with me gone.”

“I bet. And what, you can read minds now?”

“Nah, just best guess, what else are you gonna be wondering besides how the hell’d I get out?”

“Not sure I believe you,” Sarah says.

But still, somehow, they end up in the kitchen, and Sarah’s making coffee.

“Oh, my god, this is so good,” Nancy says.

“It’s just grocery-store cheap stuff.”

“Yeah, well, loony-bin coffee _sucked_. I was in for weeks doing group therapy and bullshit like that after I stopped hallucinating, and jesus, the coffee. It was olive-green, swear to god.”

They sit there for a couple of hours, just talking. And every now and then, “Hey, you’re chatting with the girl who tried to kill you,” pops into Sarah’s head, but mostly it’s...nice. She hasn’t been able to really talk to anybody about all the crazy shit that happened. Talking about it with most people would have gotten _her_ committed.

She tried a little with Lirio, who would at least believe her, but it made Liro look so...worried and pitying and mom-ish, and Sarah doesn’t really want that from her. Wants to be what they are now, co-workers and fellow adults. There’s no fucking way she’s ever discussing any of it with her dad or stepmom. They know _something_ happened--the state of the house when they got home that night clued them in that far--but they had gotten really good even before they moved here at not seeing anything they didn’t want to see, which included anything to do with Sarah's powers.

It’s great to talk about it, about--well, not quite everything. They don't discuss that last night. But the good things, the wildness and fun, the _rush_ of that first onset of powers. And Nancy’s got actual news--she’s already been to see Rochelle, at UCLA, and Bonnie--married.

“Married?”

“Yup.”

“Jesus.”

“Yup.”

“Wow. I’ve barely even been on a _date_ the last couple years.”

“Yeah, well, me neither,” Nancy grins. “Dating not so much encouraged in the bin of loonies.”

“You gotta call it that? Really?”

Nancy leans close and, in a ludicrously solemn tone, says, “Maaaaaaadhouse. Better?”

“No,” and Sarah’s laughing again.

They talk until almost midnight, and then Nancy says, “Can I take your couch for the night?”

Sarah hesitates, and Nancy says, “No powers. Nothing up my sleeve. And I’d bet serious money you’ve got protective hexes on your bedroom door anyway, right?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, and, what the hell, goes to get her a blanket and pillow.

In the morning there’s a note, just saying that she’s gone back to hang out with her mom for a few days, but she’ll come by to say hi again sometime if Sarah’s cool with it.

Sarah is, weirdly, cool with it.

She finds herself waiting for Nancy to come back. 

She didn’t really tell Nancy all about everything, all about the last few years, all about how...little she’s dated, or wanted to. At first it was just because every time she tried to spend time with a guy her age, she kept seeing Chris, that terrible savage self-loathing in his face before he went out the window. And yeah, he’d been a piece of shit even before the love spell flipped him out, but so was a large percentage of everybody at that age, and he’d deserved a chance to grow out of it.

Later, though. Later she’d go out with a guy and it would be fine, no terrible flashbacks, and then he would start putting moves on her and she’d just be...bored.

She’d started having dreams, a few months before Nancy showed up on her doorstep. Dreams about the kiss when they called the corners, dreams about Nancy’s fingertips hot under her back when it was Sarah’s turn at light as a feather, stiff as a board, dreams about Nancy’s wide wild mouth and wide wild laugh.

The second time Nancy shows up, there’s more coffee. And more talking. 

“I didn’t--” Nancy says. “I didn’t tell you everything. About the loon--the mental hospital.”

And Sarah braces for some kind of horrible shit, for tales of rapist orderlies or roommates hanging themselves in the shower stall, but Nancy says, “It was--it was a good thing. The group therapy and the journaling and all that shit, it was fucking _hard_ and at first I thought it was a total waste of time, but--it was good. I never did anything like that before, you know? Nobody ever asked me about--all that shit with my mom’s boyfriends and all. It was...it was good to talk about it. It was good to be asked.”

"Yeah, talking's--talking's good," Sarah says, and even though it's not forgiveness, will never be forgiveness, her heart breaks a little.

She can't resist hooking an arm around Nancy's shoulders and giving her an awkward one-arm hug, and the old Nancy probably would have snarled that off but this Nancy goes with it, lets herself be tilted until her head is on Sarah's shoulder.

They stay that way for a while, just quietly breathing together as the windows darken and the streetlights come on, and then Nancy finally curls both arms around Sarah's waist and they slump down together until they're both stretched out on the couch in a warm tangle.

It seems like a time to say something, something important, but all Sarah can come up with is, "Mmmmm," because this feels so good, and it also feels completely unlikely and totally inevitable at the same time, and what can you say about that?"

"Mmmmm," Nancy replies agreeably, and Sarah disentangles an arm and puts her hand to Nancy's cheek, drifts her fingers down to touch that mouth. And she's expecting--sudden rapid escalation from there, Nancy sucking her fingers maybe, Nancy rolling them both to crash onto the floor and starting to yank clothes off. But Nancy just parts her lips slightly and breathes warm on Sarah's fingers, and so it's up to Sarah. It's all up to her to cup Nancy's cheek and kiss her very softly, kiss her for a long long time in the slowly darkening room, and it's not forgiveness and after all they've been through love is a stupid word, but it's something, it's _something_ and that's more than she's had in years, more than she's let herself want even, and she's just going to keep kissing Nancy, harder now, deeper now, just keep kissing her and not worry about a name for this thing, not worry about anything at all.

\---end--


End file.
